[Sigia-l] Is pricing design?

[Ziya Oz]

Christopher Fahey:

> Is pricing part of marketing? Is pricing part of advertising? Is pricing
> part of branding? Is pricing part of public relations?...

Let's try a little substitution: Is design part of marketing? Is design part
of advertising? Is design part of branding? Is design part of public
relations?...

It seems to me that price *and* design do and should touch pretty much
everything a company does.

You say, "Pricing is a business decision." Fair enough. But it is so,
because those who make that decision *currently* are from business. (Well, I
never tire of citing that not too long ago barbers acted as coroners.) Is
there any evidence that in a more ideal world business will always be the
best to aggregate, analyze and decide price (and other fundamental issues)?

> a company would be foolish to let a person who has spent years of their life
> practicing and studing the fields of design be the main arbiter of pricing for
> products or services...

Again, this is how things are today. Does that mean things couldn't or
shouldn't change?

> Show Ziya anything, and he'll say "design owns it".

Not true. Almost anything. :-)

If user experience is shaping out to be the primary engine that pulls a
company through the intensely competitive marketplace, shouldn't people
perhaps closest to UX have far higher responsibility in making decisions
like pricing?

You may say, well, designers don't know much about pricing. OK, but they can
and should learn. That doesn't mean designers will ever be as proficient in
deciphering balance sheets and quant analysis as analysts, but strategic
framing of problems always trumps those kinds of tactical tasks. After all,
there are many areas of business activity those who are tasked with making
business decisions know very little about. Just as very few designers I know
really know how to sketch, illustrate, etc., and that doesn't stop them from
making higher level design decisions.

> ... but when they do so, they are no longer really practicing design when they
> do so.

Think of it this way. Some decisions made by others absolutely affect design
in very fundamental ways. So designers have a choice: they can accept this
divine law and continue to play at the margins. Or they can question why
they shouldn't move up a notch or two and make those decisions themselves.

Example, like countless other companies, Sony created Connect to compete
against the iPod/iTunes hegemony. AFTER all kinds of "business" decisions
were already made about the service (goals, pricing, technology, etc), I'm
sure designers were *told* to come up with a design for it. I think you'd
agree with me that given all these business constraints, Connect had
absolutely no chance of survival whatsoever. And obviously failed. What if
you were a designer at Sony (or its agency)? No matter what creativity you
had, it was all for nothing. You'd be playing 'design' at the margins, on
the deck of a sinking ship, with business barking instructions at you all
the way. In my world, strategic design would never allow an abomination like
Connect, or similar efforts by Wal-Mart, BestBuy, etc.

> Design = Design

You mean like pornography, you'd recognize it when you see it? :-)

BTW, aren't you the one who wagered that there'll be a designer CEO one day?

----
Ziya

Business = Design = Business.